And again, they are ever most useful, in enabling us to apply the course of His providence, and the ordinances of His will, to the benefit of man. Should we but accidentally show a rudeness of manner towards our fellow-man, tread on the hem of his garment, or brush roughly against him, are we not vexed, not as if we had hurt him, but from the fear we may have been disrespectful? 2. The Services of religion, day by day, obedience to God in our calling and in ordinary matters, endeavours to imitate our Saviour Christ in word and deed constant prayer to Him, and dependence on Him, these are the due preparation for receiving and profiting by His revelations; whereas many a man can write and talk beautifully about them, who is not at all better or nearer heaven for all his excellent words. Supposing the inquirer I have been describing, when examining a flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a ray of light, which he treats as something so beneath him in the scale of existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the presence of some powerful being who was hidden behind the visible things he was inspecting, who, though concealing his wise hand, was giving them their beauty, grace, and perfection, as being God’s instrument for the purpose, nay whose robe and ornaments those wondrous objects were, which he was so eager to analyse, what would be his thoughts? and how little we know concerning them! And his ministers a flame of fire; they are but ministers and servants, who reveal or perform his will to those to whom God sends them; honourable officers of the great King, fulfilling his pleasure, Hebrews 1:14, executing all his commands, and going and coming at his beck, Psalms 103:20,21. Of course, it is God’s will which, sustains it all; so does God’s will enable us to move also, yet this does not hinder, but, in one sense, we may be truly said to move ourselves: but how do the wind and water, earth and fire, move? Accordingly, the Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handy-work.” “O Lord, Thy word endureth for ever in heaven. layout: "video", Indeed, what do we know of the courts of heaven, but as peopled by them? So he goes on, tracing the order of things, seeking for Causes in that order, giving names to the wonders he meets with, and thinking he understands what he has given a name to. This, I say, is likely to be our sin, in proportion as we are initiated into the learning of this world;—and this is the danger of many (so called) philosophical pursuits, now in fashion, and recommended zealously to the notice of large portions of the community, hitherto strangers to them,—chemistry, geology, and the like; the danger, that is, of resting in things seen, and forgetting unseen things, and our ignorance about them. The hosts of Sennacherib were destroyed by an Angel, by means (it is supposed) of a suffocating wind. We begin to see how little we are, how altogether mean and worthless in ourselves, and how high He is, and fearful. And thus I am led to another use of the doctrine under consideration. I do not pretend to say, that we are told in Scripture what Matter is; but I affirm, that as our souls move our bodies, be our bodies what they may, so there are Spiritual Intelligences which move those wonderful and vast portions of the natural world which seem to be inanimate; and as the gestures, speech, and expressive countenances of our friends around us enable us to hold intercourse with them, so in the motions of universal Nature, in the interchange of day and night, summer and winter, wind and storm, fulfilling His word, we are reminded of the blessed and dutiful Angels. height: 400, The text informs us that Almighty God makes His Angels spirits or winds, and His Ministers a flame of fire. Nature is not inanimate; its daily toil is intelligent; its works are duties. Now here Scripture interposes, and seems to tell us, that all this wonderful harmony is the work of Angels. '” ELAINE TAVOLACCI The fiery lava of the volcanoes, which (as it appears) was the cause of Sodom and Gomorrah’s ruin, was caused by the two Angels who rescued Lot. The text informs us that Almighty God makes His Angels spirits or winds, and His Ministers a flame of fire. The Angels were bid to change the nature of the flame, and make it harmless to them; and they in turn called on all the creatures of God, on the Angels especially, to glorify Him. Psalm 104:4 “Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.” Jeremiah 20:9b “But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back and I could not.” Hebrews 1:7 “In speaking of the angels He says, ‘He makes His angels winds, His servants Flames of Fire. Thus we are enabled to enjoy God’s gifts; and let us thank Him for the knowledge which enables us to do so, and honour those who are His instruments in communicating it. This is the sin of a dark age. The elements are described as prompt and expedite to perform the Divine commands, like angels or ministers serving in the tabernacle; the Hebrew word משרתיו mesharethaiv being a word most common in the sacred ministrations. 1. new Twitch.Embed("twitch-embed", { "Who maketh winds his messengers; Flames of fire his ministers;." For, even did we know as much about them as the wisest of men, yet there are those around us, though unseen, to whom our greatest knowledge is as ignorance; and, when we converse on subjects of Nature scientifically, repeating the names of plants and earths, and describing their properties, we should do so religiously, as in the hearing of the great Servants of God, with the sort of diffidence which we always feel when speaking before the learned and wise of our own mortal race, as poor beginners in intellectual knowledge, as well as in moral attainments. Here our natural reason is at fault; we know, I say, that it is the spirit in man and in beast that makes man and beast move, but reason tells us of no spirit abiding in what is commonly called the natural world, to make it perform its ordinary duties. and therefore doubtless they are revealed to us, that we may have something to fix our thoughts on, when we look heavenwards. Hence, in the Communion Service, our Church teaches us to join our praises with that of “Angels and Archangels, and all the Company of heaven;” and the early Christians even hoped that they waited on the Church’s seasons of worship, and glorified God with her. Jesus Christ in the Sermon–Presence or Absence. But why do rivers flow? "he maketh his messengers, or angels, swift as the wind.''. In some indeed we see symptoms of intelligence, and we get to form some idea of what they are. The pestilence in Israel when David numbered the people, was the work of an Angel. Yet such, I fear, is the condition of many men nowadays, who talk loudly, and appear to themselves and others to be oracles of science, and, as far as the detail of facts goes, do know much more about the operations of Nature than any of us. This world is to be a world of practice and labour; God reveals to us glimpses of the Third Heaven for our comfort; but if we indulge in these as the end of our present being, not trying day by day to purify ourselves for the future enjoyment of the fulness of them, they become but a snare of our enemy. Hebrews 1:7 Parallel Verses [⇓ See commentary ⇓] Hebrews 1:7, NIV: "In speaking of the angels he says, 'He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire.'" His ministers a flaming fire; angels are ministers to God, stand before him, behold his face, wait for and listen to his orders, and execute them; they are ministers to Christ, they were so at his incarnation, in his infancy, when in the wilderness and in the garden, at his resurrection and ascension, and will attend him at his second coming; and these are ministers to his people, take the care of them, encamp about them, do many good offices to them in life, and at death carry their souls to Abraham's bosom: these are made a flaming fire, or "as" flaming fire, for their force and power; so the Targum. When we survey Almighty God surrounded by His Holy Angels, His thousand thousands of ministering Spirits, and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before Him, the idea of His awful Majesty rises before us more powerfully and impressively. The fires on Mount Sinai, the thunders and lightnings, were the work of Angels; and in the Apocalypse we read of the Angels restraining the four winds. There have been ages of the world, in which men have thought too much of Angels, and paid them excessive honour; honoured them so perversely as to forget the supreme worship due to Almighty God. Who maketh his angels spirits - The meaning here literally would be, "Who makes the winds his messengers," or "his angels;" that is, who employs them to execute his purpose; who sends them out as messengers or angels to do his will. channel: "iconday" This is intended to describe the majesty and the power of God - that he can employ wind and lightning - tempest and storm - to go on errands such as he commands; to fulfill his plans; to do his bidding.

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